so i've been doing single op for a few years now, mostly CQWW and SS, and i keep reading about SO2R and how the top scores are basically impossible without it. i get the concept — you're running on one radio while hunting mults on the second — but i'm struggling to wrap my head around how people actually manage it in practice without completely losing their minds or their run frequency.

like what do you do when the second radio lands on a good mult right as you're in the middle of a run? do you just let the run die? i've been using N1MM and i know there's SO2R support built in but even setting it up looked intimidating enough that i just closed the window and went back to single radio. currently running an IC-7300 as my main and i have an older TS-570 sitting around that i could use as radio 2 if i got serious about this.

also i'm curious how people handle the antenna situation — do you really need separate antennas for each radio or can you get away with switching? i only have one tower and the interaction between two rigs transmitting even close to simultaneously seems like it would be a disaster for the front ends. anyway just trying to figure out if the effort to set this up is worth it for someone doing maybe 6-8 contests a year at the serious-ish recreational level, not gunning for plaques or anything

honestly the antenna situation is what stops most people before they even get to the operating skill part. you really do need separate antennas and some kind of bandpass filtering or you will toast something, or at minimum get such horrible IMD that your audio is useless. the ICE or 4O3A bandpass filters are what most people run, they're not cheap but they work. using the 7300 and 570 together is doable but you'll want to keep them on different bands — like one on 20 the other on 40 — rather than trying to run same-band SO2R which is a whole other level of complexity.

as for the operating side, the way it actually works in practice is more like... you set a CQ macro running on radio 1, and while you're waiting for calls you're tuning around on radio 2 looking for mults. when you find one you work it between your own CQs. if the mult shows up right during a pileup on your run frequency then yeah sometimes you let a call or two go, it's a judgment call based on how rare the mult is. the rate hit is real but if it's a new one you need you take it. after maybe a full contest season of doing it your brain starts to partition things more naturally but the first few contests you'll feel completely scattered. worth it if you're serious though, the score difference is significant.

i tried SO2R for the first time last ARRL DX and i have to say the setup took me longer than i expected and i definitely wasnt fully ready when the contest started. my big mistake was not having the audio routing sorted out ahead of time — i was trying to manage two sets of audio in my headphones and it just became chaos. ended up basically ignoring radio 2 for most of the first night which defeated the whole point lol.

one thing that actually helped me even before i got SO2R working properly was just focusing more on rate optimization on single radio first. like really drilling down on your CQ timing, keeping your exchange snappy, not over-calling people who clearly have your call, having your function keys set up so you never have to touch the keyboard mid-qso for common things. i picked up maybe 15-20% more QSOs per hour just from cleaning up my operating habits before i ever touched the second radio. so maybe start there if you havent already gone through that exercise